This was supposed to be my first post on Substack. Due to technical difficulties in the setup, it’s not happening. Yet. I decided to post here, rather than stress about it when my letter is already late. My own little bit of nonnamaxxing—in a weird way. One evening at the dinner table, my mother […]
I’m moving! No, not physically, not yet. Though this move is just as angst filled and complex as that will be. I’m moving my monthly eLetter (of which posts here are a duplication) to [insert strangled gasping] Substack. Now I hear your strangled gasps. “Please, not another Substack in my email feed!” Hear me […]
“If you could stay put, would you?” No. Also, yes. A friend, on a four-person Zoom call, asked the question as I cried my way through telling of my overwhelm cleaning out the family home I’m living in. Part of the reason I’m still here is because the task is not done. And maybe I’m […]
I’m tired. Can I just name that? The wonky sleep of advancing years. Trying to hang onto joy in these times that shatter my heart, over and over. (I wish I could say everything seems worse in the middle of the night, but in this case it’s bad and badder all the time.) Fretting about […]
I’ll be seventy-four soon. Which means I turned forty . . . well, a long time ago. Forty is the over-the-hill birthday, right? Decorations are black, balloons have dire messages, life is pretty much over. As I approached that birthday, though, I felt like life was beginning. Maybe I would finally feel like an adult, […]
Here in the Pacific Northwest the forsythia is blooming, swollen buds are bursting open, raspberry canes are sprouting new leaves. It’s also cold and rainy (except when it’s not), and the mountains are getting much-needed snow. Perfect weather for indoor projects. I have a growing list. I’ve been looking for a stack of Little […]
While snow, cold, and ice (also ICE) have had the eastern side of the country in a lock, here in the Pacific NW we’ve seen bitter cold, unseasonable warmth, and—always—rain. When it’s sixty degrees, I remind myself it’s not spring. When it’s twelve degrees, I remember it is winter. I wish it would snow, but […]
Does anyone make New Year’s resolutions these days? Or is it just the olders who have gotten wiser, let those magnificent opportunities for failure go? (Maybe we are the only generation who ever did.) Some are really good—drink more water, stop scrolling social media, get more exercise—but who needs the pressure of “resolve”? Some of […]
As long as I’ve been practicing yoga, there has been the offered option of doing balance poses with wall support. The first years, I availed myself of it. Surely preferable, I figured, to the shame of falling out. I was failing at a lot in those years: motherhood, relationships, self-esteem. I could at least not […]
The dharma talk in yoga in October explored the word “progress.” I confess, I couldn’t hear a lot of it. Yes, I had my hearing aids in, but the HVAC fan drowns out all other sound. So I hear a bit, the fan comes on, and I riff on the theme in my head. (And […]